The business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. Times

The battle of lawsuits between Microsoft and Motorola continues. On Thursday, Motorola filed a lawsuit alleging that Microsoft has infringed on 16 of its patents in the Windows operating system, Windows mobile software and the Xbox video game consoles.

The Motorola suit comes a day after Microsoft filed its own suit against Motorola claiming that the cellphone maker inflated royalties for networking technology that the software giant uses in the Xbox.

In all, Microsoft has filed two lawsuits against Motorola over about the last month. The first suit Microsoft alleged that technology used in Motorola's smart phones running Google's Android operating system were infringing on nine of Microsoft's patents.

“Motorola’s R&D and intellectual property are of great importance to the company and are renowned worldwide,” said Kirk Dailey, Motorola Mobility’s corporate vice president of intellectual property, in a statement. “We are committed to protecting the interests of our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders and are bringing this action against Microsoft in order to halt its infringement of key Motorola patents."

Motorola claims in its suit that applications in Microsoft's Windows operating system, such as Exchange, Outlook, Messenger and Windows Live instant messaging system infringe on Motorola patents.

In the statement, Dailey acknowledged the back-and-forth nature of the lawsuits between the two companies.

“It is unfortunate that Microsoft has chosen the litigation path rather than entering into comprehensive licensing negotiations, as Motorola has mutually beneficial licensing relationships with the great majority of technology companies industry-wide,” Dailey said in the statement.

Motorola also alleges in its suit that Windows mobile software, Windows Marketplace, Bing maps and some video encoding programs, as well as Wi-Fi connectivity and password technologies used in the Xbox, violate Motorola's patents.

The suit requests an injunction against Microsoft from using Motorola’s technology, as well as compensation for infringement.

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing, said in a statement that the company was still reviewing Motorola's suit.

"This move is typical of the litigation process and we are not surprised," Gutierrez said in the statement. "We remain confident in our position and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola.”

Photo (top): Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices, talks about a new mobile device based on Google's Android operating system in San Francisco. Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP photo File)